The Fadnavis government on Tuesday approved a policy for desilting of small dams, lakes, ponds and other water reservoirs in the state making villagers a major stakeholder in the process. The policy empowers village councils to decide on desilting of nearby reservoirs and using the fertile silt in their agricultural farms for free. "The villagers can then send their desilting proposal to the government. The government will approve it after scrutiny and also provide help with the JCB machines to extract the silt from dams. To carry the silt from reservoir's shore to the farms, would be villagers' job," states the policy.

Source: dna May 03, 2017 02:26 UTC